1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of signal processing. More specifically, the present invention relates to the processing of measured signals, containing a primary and a secondary signal, for the removal or derivation of either the primary or secondary signal when little is known about either of these components. The present invention also relates to the use of a novel processor which in conjunction with a correlation canceler, such as an adaptive noise canceler, produces primary and/or secondary signals. The present invention is especially useful for physiological monitoring systems including blood oxygen saturation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Signal processors are typically employed to remove or derive either the primary or secondary signal portion from a composite measured signal including a primary signal portion and a secondary signal portion. If the secondary signal portion occupies a different frequency spectrum than the primary signal portion, then conventional filtering techniques such as low pass, band pass, and high pass filtering could be used to remove or derive either the primary or the secondary signal portion from the total signal. Fixed single or multiple notch filters could also be employed if the primary and/or secondary signal portion(s) exit at a fixed frequency(s).
It is often the case that an overlap in frequency spectrum between the primary and secondary signal portions exists. Complicating matters further, the statistical properties of one or both of the primary and secondary signal portions change with time. In such cases, conventional filtering techniques are totally ineffective in extracting either the primary or secondary signal. If, however, a description of either the primary or secondary signal portion can be made available correlation canceling, such as adaptive noise canceling, can be employed to remove either the primary or secondary signal portion of the signal leaving the other portion available for measurement.
Correlation cancelers, such as adaptive noise cancelers, dynamically change their transfer function to adapt to and remove either the primary or secondary signal portions of a composite signal. Correlation cancelers require either a secondary reference or a primary reference which is correlated to either the secondary signal or the primary signal portions only. The reference signals are not necessarily a representation of the primary or secondary signal portions, but have a frequency spectrum which is similar to that of the primary or secondary signal portions. In many cases, it requires considerable ingenuity to determine a reference signal since nothing is usually known a priori about the secondary and/or primary signal portions.
One area where composite measured signals comprising a primary signal portion and a secondary signal portion about which no information can easily be determined is physiological monitoring. Physiological monitoring apparatuses generally measure signals derived from a physiological system, such as the human body. Measurements which are typically taken with physiological monitoring systems include electrocardiographs, blood pressure, blood gas saturation (such as oxygen saturation), capnographs, heart rate, respiration rate, and depth of anesthesia, for example. Other types of measurements include those which measure the pressure and quantity of a substance within the body such as breathalyzer testing, drug testing, cholesterol testing, glucose testing, arterial carbon dioxide testing, protein testing, and carbon monoxide testing, for example. Complications arising in these measurements are often due to motion of the patient, both external and internal (muscle movement, for example), during the measurement process.
Knowledge of physiological systems, such as the amount of oxygen in a patient's blood, can be critical, for example during surgery. These data can be determined by a lengthy invasive procedure of extracting and testing matter, such as blood, from a patient, or by more expedient, non-invasive measures. Many types of non-invasive measurements can be made by using the known properties of energy attenuation as a selected form of energy passes through a medium.
Energy is caused to be incident on a medium either derived from or contained within a patient and the amplitude of transmitted or reflected energy is then measured. The amount of attenuation of the incident energy caused by the medium is strongly dependent on the thickness and composition of the medium through which the energy must pass as well as the specific form of energy selected. Information about a physiological system can be derived from data taken from the attenuated signal of the incident energy transmitted through the medium if either the primary or secondary signal of the composite measurement signal can be removed. However, non-invasive measurements often do not afford the opportunity to selectively observe the interference causing either the primary or secondary signal portions, making it difficult to extract either one of them from the composite signal.
The primary and/or secondary signal portions often originate from both AC and/or DC sources. The DC portions are caused by transmission of the energy through differing media which are of relatively constant thickness within the body, such as bone, tissue, skin, blood, etc. These portions are easy to remove from a composite signal. The AC components are caused by physiological pulsations or when differing media being measured are perturbed and thus, change in thickness while the measurement is being made. Since most materials in and derived from the body are easily compressed, the thickness of such matter changes if the patient moves during a non-invasive physiological measurement. Patient movement, muscular movement and vessel movement, can cause the properties of energy attenuation to vary erratically. Traditional signal filtering techniques are frequently totally ineffective and grossly deficient in removing these motion induced effects from a signal. The erratic or unpredictable nature of motion induced signal components is the major obstacle in removing or deriving them. Thus, presently available physiological monitors generally become totally inoperative during time periods when the measurement site is perturbed.
A blood gas monitor is one example of a physiological monitoring system which is based upon the measurement of energy attenuated by biological tissues or substances. Blood gas monitors transmit light into the tissue and measure the attenuation of the light as a function of time. The output signal of a blood gas monitor which is sensitive to the arterial blood flow contains a component which is a waveform representative of the patient's arterial pulse. This type of signal, which contains a component related to the patient's pulse, is called a plethysmographic wave, and is shown in FIG. 1 as curve s. Plethysmographic waveforms are used in blood pressure or blood gas saturation measurements, for example. As the heart beats, the amount of blood in the arteries increases and decreases, causing increases and decreases in energy attenuation, illustrated by the cyclic waves in FIG. 1.
Typically, a digit such as a finger, an ear lobe, or other portion of the body where blood flows close to the skin, is employed as the medium through which light energy is transmitted for blood gas attenuation measurements. The finger comprises skin, fat, bone, muscle, etc., shown schematically in FIG. 2, each of which attenuates energy incident on the finger in a generally predictable and constant manner. However, when fleshy portions of the finger are compressed erratically, for example by motion of the finger, energy attenuation becomes erratic.
An example of a more realistic measured waveform S is shown in FIG. 3, illustrating the effect of motion. The primary plethysmographic waveform portion of the signal s is the waveform representative of the pulse, corresponding to the sawtooth-like pattern wave in FIG. 1. The large, secondary motion-induced excursions in signal amplitude hide the primary plethysmographic signal s. It is easy to see how even small variations in amplitude make it difficult to distinguish the primary signal s in the presence of a secondary signal component n.
A specific example of a blood gas monitoring apparatus is a pulse oximeter which measures the arterial saturation of oxygen in the blood. The pumping of the heart forces freshly oxygenated blood into the arteries causing greater energy attenuation. The arterial saturation of oxygenated blood may be determined from the depth of the valleys relative to the peaks of two plethysmographic waveforms measured at separate wavelengths. Patient movement introduces signal portions mostly due to venous blood, or motion artifacts, to the plethysmographic waveform illustrated in FIG. 3. It is these motion artifacts which must be removed from the measured signal for the oximeter to continue the measurement of arterial blood oxygen saturation, even during periods when the patient moves. It is also these motion artifacts which must be derived from the measured signal for the oximeter to obtain an estimate of venous blood oxygen saturation. Once the signal components due to either arterial blood or venous blood is known, its corresponding oxygen saturation may be determined.